I am
Down the road and up the hill
I wait for you still
Wires ‘round my fingers
Potentially lovely
Perpetually human
Suspended and open
Open
Open

I am
Through the woods and past the trains
I wait here in vain
Scrubbing out the stains again
Potentially lovely
Perpetually human
Haphazardly open
Open
Open

Open up you heart, and then
In a night, the snow starts falling
And everybody stares
Through their windows at the streetlights
Too beautiful to see

I am
In a room I’ve built myself
Four straight walls
One floor
One ceiling
And day after day, I wake up feeling
Day, way
Day after way feeling

Potentially lovely
Perpetually human
Suspended and open
Open
Open
Open

Open up
Your heart
And then…

‘Sing your heart out’
The words sting my ears
With irony.
The vibrations in my throat
Burn with the lyrics
That form from my lips
As I sing with my heart—

There.
Pulsing.
Losing life with every note
It’s so painfully ironic,
You see?

Because
As I sing, endlessly,
With every motion of my hands to my chest
With every beat I feel in my bones
With every measure that pulses in my fingertips
With every rest
As I gasp for the air—

I no longer have a heart.